by J. E. Klimov
“Nervous habit. But after today I won’t!”
Bence chuckled. After securing himself, he pat Tulelo’s head and asked, “So, what’s your brilliant proposal?”
“Break free,” Tulelo remarked.
“Well, yes, that is what we are going to do. But how? The entrances are heavily guarded and probably on alert now.”
Tulelo bucked his hind legs, sending Bence face first into his scaly neck. “I already told you. We will break free.”
Rubbing his nose, Bence squeezed his eyes. Tears leaked from them as the sting faded. “No more questions.”
“Hold on tight.”
No sooner had Bence secured his grip, the Dunya ducked out of the house. Bence peeked to the left as Tulelo checked the right.
“All clear,” Bence said.
Without warning, Tulelo darted down the southern road at top speed. Bence’s neck whiplashed. When he righted himself, he pounded his fist onto his friend’s back. “Ever heard of stealth?”
Tulelo responded with heavy panting as he pounded his four paws against the ground, crushing stone into pebbles and causing tremors that of a small earthquake. The copper frames of buildings rattled in alarm as they charged past. Clutching onto dear life, Bence swung his head around. Lanterns lit one by one back in the castle, flickering like fireflies. Shouts erupted in the air from various directions, but they all drowned out from the pounding of Tulelo’s steps. When Bence turned his focus ahead, his stomach plummeted at the sight of the large wall separating the compound to the rest of the Irellian city.
“Woah, watch it!” Bence exclaimed. “Tulelo?”
The wall’s shadow shrouded the pair in darkness. Tulelo worked up so much momentum, there was no way they could stop in time. Bence ducked his head and hugged the Dunya’s shoulders. His muscles tensed, bracing for impact.
BOOM.
Chucks of rock and clay rained over him. Bence swung one arm to cover his head. When the shower of debris ended, he looked up. His mouth hung open. Tulelo had broken through the wall, and they were already halfway into the city center. They zoomed through one winding road, into the square and past the fountain. As Bence’s eyes flickered to the side, daring to find any pursuers, he spotted the old lady, sitting behind her shop counter. Her fingers wove in between one another. As they turned into another road, he swore the old woman smiled before tilting her head downward.
“Are you okay?” Bence shouted. The rush of adrenaline transformed from a flurry of worries to one of exhilaration. He felt he could fly.
“Yes! Just a little headache!” Tulelo guffawed, shaking any remaining dust from his head.
“We’re almost free. Don’t stop!”
A tower stood on a long slope that lead to open fields dotted with Kacterous. Tiny white flowers also glowed in the distance. The Swift Smuggler.
An arrow zipped by, grazing Tulelo’s cheek. He swerved, flinging Bence off his back. The landing squeezed the air from his lungs, but Bence pushed himself onto his knees. Swaying side to side, his gaze shot to the top of the tower. A lone archer with one evergreen line painted down the length of his face drew another arrow. He charged toward the ladder, but as soon as he climbed a few steps, a wood-splintering snap stopped his heart. Looking up, Bence’s mouth ran dry. The warrior broke the ladder from its ties and kicked it.
Bence leapt and rolled as the ladder crashed within inches of him. Another arrow zipped and tore through his boot. The leather split open, but spared his flesh. He had to keep moving, or else he wouldn’t be so lucky. He sped toward the base of the tower, taking hasty gulps of air. Roars snatched his attention.
Blurred lines rained over Tulelo. The arrowheads bounced off his scales, but a pair dug into his exposed flesh where he had been nipping. Bence wanted to defend the Dunya, but running back out there would be suicide.
The tower’s shadow stretched past Tulelo. Squinting, Bence made out the warped form of the warrior. Tulelo released an ear-piercing screech that tore his confidence in two. After cursing loudly, he sprinted. When he approached Tulelo, he slid underneath his belly, and continued forward. He was only a few feet away from the warrior’s shadow. Bence didn’t know how to make his powers work. He simply hoped it would. When hot silver blood rained over him, Bence’s emotions manifested in the pearl. So that’s it.
Diving into the shadow, Bence sank into the ground. He succumbed to the pins and needles sensation. Without struggling, his body stretched and tugged comfortably. Bence focused his mind at the archer. Then, as if yanked by the collar, he glided across the road and up the tower at breakneck speed. When he reached where the shadow connected with the archer, he sprung out of the ground, and slashed his throat in one smooth stroke.
Staccato voices echoed down the streets. Men and women with torches marched; the flames lit up the face of Ki, face filled with blood-lust. She had changed her headpiece. This one was made of paper machete, doused in lilac ink. The iconic lion’s paw was stamped in the middle with a white eye painted within. Ki waved what looked like a twisted staff with a crystal lodged at the end. Unease cut through him. The pearl he pillaged from Deran was by no means normal, but Ki’s fury manifested like some unholy sorcery.
“Tulelo!”
The Dunya shifted toward his voice, exposing rivers of silver pouring from his wounds. He bounded closer to the tower and stretched out on all fours. Bence nodded; he couldn’t help but smile himself. This thing gets me.
Bence leapt from the tower, cycling his arms and legs. When he crashed onto Tulelo, pain radiated from his crotch and down his legs. Bence screamed curses and pounded his fist repeatedly.
“You okay?”
“Yes,” Bence said through gritted teeth. “I just may never be able to have kids. Not that it was ever on my list of priorities. Priorities like your injuries!” He crawled toward the arrows lodged into Tulelo’s exposed flesh. Yelling in the area intensified. “Tulelo. Run. Run as fast as your heart can bear. I’ll remove these arrows, but don’t stop for anything!”
Digging his claws into the ground, Tulelo released a guttural roar and charged toward the city limits. Bence clutched onto Tulelo’s scales as wind whipped through his hair. He couldn’t quite grip his legs around his thick trunk. His face contorted at the increasing momentum; the lower half of his body slammed against Tulelo’s hide repeatedly. Sucking up the pain, he scaled his Dunyan companion and reached for an arrow. He ripped one out. Silver blood spurted out in pulses.
Bence bit his long-sleeved garment, ripped the fabric, and pressed on the wound. The second arrow was to his upper left. Extending his hand, Bence stretched his fingers. Instead of an arrow, he caught a handful, and a face-full, of braches.
“Watch it,” he snapped. Only heavy grunting responded. After he repositioned himself, Bence crawled up a notch, using one knee to hold the sleeve down. A gnarled tree entered his line of vision. With a shout, he ducked. After a few more close calls, Bence finally ripped the second arrow out. Blood oozed slowly from this puncture. He sighed with relief. He wouldn’t have been able to straddle and hold down two arterial puncture wounds.
Torches flickered in the night like stars. He craned his neck close to Tulelo’s ear, “Don’t stop.”
“My lungs. I’m having a hard time catching breath. And you’re heavy.” Tulelo panted. His coarse tongue flopped side to side.
Dodging a ball of saliva, Bence leaned forward again. “You can’t give up. We got to make it, whether I’m heavy as a boulder or light as a snowflake.”
The stampede of Irellian warriors gained considerable distance. Bence noticed they were riding something. Horses. Donkeys. Something. As his mind raced for a backup plan, familiar twin stone peaks appeared. Tulelo dug his claws into the dirt and came to an abrupt halt, hurtling Bence into the air.
The world circled around him. As soon as Bence spotted Tulelo’s shadow, he called upon his pearl ring. A warmth surged up his arm, and in a blink of an eye, an invisible tug pulled him up besides Tulelo. His hands fell
to his knees. “Woah. Did you see that? I mean, like what did I look like─”
An invisible needle sewed his mouth shut. Beneath the two moons, a rotting corpse lay in the spotlight. Gnats buzzed around scarlet scales. What was a pool of blood was now a mound of silver-painted sand. Every time a breeze swept by, shimmering specks danced into the sky.
Burying his nuzzle into the sand, Tulelo whimpered. Though muffled, Bence clearly knew what he was saying.
“Momma… Momma.”
Bence bit his fist. “Tulelo. We need to hide. We can’t outrun them, so we need to find another way to lose them.”
“Momma… Momma.”
Bence grabbed Tulelo and glared into his eyes. The yellow irises were covered with a film of tears, causing a similar sensation to well up in his eyes, but he swallowed and forced the feeling away. The emotion the Dunya was going through was contagious, and it had to stop. “We need to survive. Your mother would’ve wanted that. She left Deran to bring you to a safe place, and damn it, you’re not dying tonight. And neither am I!”
After a soft moan, Tulelo tilted his head. “Can you use your magic?”
“Not sure,” Bence replied, glancing at his ring. “The only thing I’ve been able to do is pin down shadows and travel to another destination via an existing shadow.” Wrapping his arm around the thick trunk of Tulelo’s right leg, “But let’s try.”
They scurried to a small nook between the two peaks. Opportunities diminished as Adin and Deva hung in the middle of the sky. They superimposed, casting maximum moonlight. The light even erased stars within its proximity. When Bence found an area enshrouded in darkness, he focused on the pearl. Nothing happened.
“Come on.” He growled, flexing his fingers. “What other tricks you got? We need to hide.” Warmth surged up his arm again, and Bence cried out. “Something’s happening!” Keeping his arm hooked around Tulelo’s leg, he waited.
A sudden jerk dragged Bence downward, and he continued to sink into the darkness like quicksand. His smile faded when he lost his grip on Tulelo. While his arm faded into black, Tulelo remained solid.
“Wait. Where are you going?” Panic sharpened Tulelo’s tone like a blade against stone.
“I don’t know,” Bence said. The farther into darkness he drew, the more echoed his voice became.
Tulelo whipped his head and his eyes scanned the ground. “Where are you?”
“I’m here!” Bence cried out, cupping his hands around his mouth. His words evaporated into dead air. Disappointment flushed down his body, leaving traces of dread in his veins. He willed himself from the darkness, barely acknowledging the prickling sensation. Tulelo regarded him with bulged eyes and a quivering tail. Looking past him, Bence laid eyes on his dead mother.
Avani’s carcass was mostly intact. Most of her scales and piercings had been ripped off. Wounds appeared minimal aside from a long slice down the length of her vulnerable underbelly. Her gizzards and other organs were gone. Bence’s eyes flicked, briefly gazing at the sky. A lustful caw of a buzzard snatched his attention.
“Your mother has allowed us one more chance at living,” he said. He held his breath.
“W-what do you mean?”
Tugging his tail, Bence said, “Hurry, come to your mother.”
Unlike the typical pounding, Bence detected only a shuffling behind him. Once they were within feet of Avani, Bence bent over and peered inside.
“No,” Tulelo said, voice brittle. “You’re insane. Y-you’re disgusting!”
The rising tide of panic finally caused Bence to backhand Tulelo. The Dunya cowered, covering his cheek with a paw. Voices hollered, bouncing off the mountain walls.
Bence nursed his hand. “Tulelo. We must hide. They’re closing in on us. Your mother is already dead. Do you want to die alongside her?”
His silence unnerved Bence. He wouldn’t be surprised if Tulelo considered it.
“Well, I don’t want you to die.”
Two tears the size of fists fell to the ground. The baby Dunya brushed past Bence, knocking him off balance, then ducked inside the carcass. He conformed to her body by curling into a tight ball, as if he were inside his egg.
“Right.” Bence murmured and followed suit. He struggled to part the incision. After pushing with all his might, a puff of rotten odor shoved down his throat. He fought the instinct to gag. Pounding hooves joined the battle cries. Holding his breath, he dove into her gut and splashed onto a shallow pool of liquid. It hissed upon contact with his clothes, and it bit his hands. “Ouch!” After shaking off the sting, he reached for the backbone and pulled himself into the ribcage. He squeezed against the lungs and pressed his feet against the body cavity. Tulelo seemed to do just fine in the abdominal acid, or whatever it was.
“They were here!” a voice boomed.
The rancid stench in the carcass immediately fell from Bence’s list of concerns.
A thud, followed by jingling, filled the night. “They were in our sight the entire time,” Ki barked. “How could they possibly disappear now?”
“Maybe he used his… dark powers,” a male voice quivered.
Stifling a laugh, Bence eyed Tulelo, but he remained curled up.
“What should we do?” the same male voice continued.
Ki huffed. “I had a bad feeling about this man in the first place, but our clan will lose nothing from his escape, so it’s not worth the effort.”
“But he has ties to another country.”
“That’s a load of crap!” A slap cracked the air. “Maciji doesn’t need some man to ensure the success of Irelle! But I agree that we can’t do nothing either, but I don’t want to waste resources.”
“Can’t you perform one of your incantations?” Another sharp female voice started circling Avani’s body.
Ki stuttered. “What kind of incantations are you expecting? Yes, I am the scholar and the discoverer of all things with a few tricks of my sleeve…” She pounded her staff. “There’s nothing I can do here.”
Crickets sang. Bence smirked. The irony of the crickets came at the perfect time. Listening to Ki struggling to answer her peers bolstered his confidence. Ki sounds like she is just as much of a fraud as I am.
“Stop gawking! I want one of you to travel to the trading post and alert all the Irellian merchants to keep an eye out for him. That way, it’ll be impossible for him to pass through to port or Norlend without being recognized. Both paths require passage through the marketplace. We’ll either capture him, or he will die in this unforgiving wilderness.”
“I volunteer,” said the female voice from earlier. Her voice still hovered around his hiding place.
“Very well then. The rest of us will rally back home.”
“Ki?” The female voice again.
“Yes?”
A foot dug into the chest cavity, squishing Bence against his knees. His head was bent so forward, he feared it would snap if pushed any father. Searing hot pain zipped down his spine.
“Should we burn this thing?”
Bence’s breath hitched.
Ki pounded her staff against the ground repeatedly and released a sigh. “There’s no way they could fit in there.”
“Can I for the sake of removing this carcass?” she insisted.
“Fine. But don’t use it as an excuse to laze around. Light her up and immediately head to the trading post.”
Her voice dropped low. “Yes, ma’am.”
Each second seemed like an eternity as Ki and her warriors left. Bence struggled for air. Tulelo snuggled into the pelvis. When the pounding of hooves faded to the point Bence could only hear blood rushing in his ears, a huff reminded him that they still weren’t alone.
“Don’t use it as an excuse to laze around,” the woman said in a nasally tone. “Swift Smuggler addict. She doesn’t understand Maciji’s burden. She can’t.”
The acrid air stung Bence’s nostrils. He shifted uncomfortably, but stilled when the female stopped talking abruptly. Smoke stung his eyes.
“I don’t want my daughter to be sold like cattle.” The woman’s voice broke. After a thud, footsteps padded away.
“Tulelo!” Bence broke into spastic coughs. Heaving, he twisted his body until he slipped into the belly. The acidic liquid boiled angrily. “Tulelo!”
The reptilian’s eye ripped open. “They’re burning momma.”
Bence’s head spun in the sweltering heat. “I think she’s gone. We have to get out.”
“Momma, momma,” Tulelo cried.
Gray smoke clouded Bence’s vision until he couldn’t see anything. Swinging the crook of his arm against his nose, he felt his way to where the slit was. Whether he liked it or not, Tulelo would do want he wanted to do. He mentally counted down from three, then rammed with all his might. He tumbled and rolled past flames that licked his clothing. He landed face down in the dirt.
Bence swallowed air desperately as he patted out flames on his legs. The two moons past one another and began their decent. Smoke billowed into the night sky like an offering. Closing his eyes, he steadied his breath and tried to ignore the snap and crackle of flesh and bone.
When he finally sat up, he scanned the area. He discovered the abandoned torch, but no one was in sight.
An uncomfortable silence enveloped Bence. Far from Irellian territory, the night was noticeably more frigid. Drawing his cloak closer, he stared into the smoldering embers. Avani’s body evaporated inch by inch. A rumble rolled in from the west, but he ignored it. Part of him wanted to get up and walk away. He had broken free from Irelle, and was likely no longer welcome there. He picked at the sand. Catching a glint of silver, he dropped it immediately.
The only option left was Waaken, although his father’s history of political exile wouldn’t help his case. But Bence had to try. Or maybe Norlend. No one knows me there. Part of Isabel’s legacy was rooted in that country. Regardless of his choice, there was no point sitting here. He had freed Tulelo from his ties as a pet, thus nothing bonded them together anymore.
A raindrop splashed on his nose. Bence lifted his hood as the inbound clouds brought a sprinkle. Rain in the desert was rare, and Bence dared to wonder if Avani’s spirit sent it their way.